Strategies for Internet citizens

Opting out of line-of-business software

When transacting business in a store or a hospital or an auto repair shop I always watch what happens on the computer screen. I’ve never written line-of-business software but deeply respect those who do. It must be a huge challenge to abstract the data, terminology, and rules for some domain into software that can sell to a lot of businesses operating in that domain. Of course there’s a tradeoff. Line-of-business applications typically aren’t user-innovation toolkits. People who use them learn specific procedures, not general skills. Businesses can’t be creative in their use of the software, nor profit from that creativity.

One notable exception is Fix, an auto repair shop in my town owned by my friend Jonah Erikson. Fix doesn’t use any line-of-business software, it runs on LibreOffice, GMail, and Google Calendar. That’s only possible because the team at Fix has an intuitive grasp of the technical fluencies I outlined in Seven ways to think like the web. For example, when you open a case with Fix they create a new spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will have a name like 2013-12-11-Luann’s Passat.ods. No software enforces that convention, it’s just something the front-office folks at Fix invented and do consistently. I’ve long practiced this method myself, and it’s something I wish were widely taught.

Why does something so simple matter so much? Let’s count the reasons.

First, it’s portable. The computer at Fix runs Linux but if there were a need to switch platforms the choice would not be governed by the availability of a line-of-business application on that other platform. That kind of switch hasn’t happened but another did. The spreadsheet files used to reside on a local drive. Now, I noticed on my last visit, they’re on DropBox. Fix didn’t need to wait for a vendor to cloud-enable their estimation and billing, it just happened naturally. No matter where the files live, and no matter what system navigates and searches them, two things will always be true. Date-labelled file names can be sorted in ascending or descending order. And customer names embedded in those file names can be searched for and found.

Second, it’s flexible. There’s freeform annotation within a given job’s spreadsheet. That enables the capture of context that wouldn’t easily fit into a rigid template. But here too there are conventions. An annotation in bold, for example, signifies a task that is proposed but not yet accepted or completed.

Third, it’s free. Fix runs on a tight budget so that matters, but I think freedom to innovate matters more than freedom from a price tag. Using general-purpose rather than line-of-business software, Fix can tailor the software expression of its unique business culture, and both can evolve organically. That freedom is “priceless,” says Fix’s office manager Mary Kate Sheridan.

If you were to watch what happens on Fix’s computer screen you might object that the system requires users to know and do too much. People shouldn’t have to think about filenames and text-formatting conventions, right? Shouldn’t they just focus on doing their jobs? Shouldn’t the software know and enforce all the rules and procedures?

I’m not so sure. In another of my favorite examples, Hugh McGuire, creator of the free audiobooks service LibriVox, imagined a line-of-business application for LibriVox’s readers and quality checkers. He couldn’t afford to commission its development, though, so instead he adapted a web conferencing system, phpBB, to his needs. It remains the foundation of LibriVox to this day. Had Hugh been able to commission the application he wanted, I believe it would have failed. I don’t think lack of special-purpose software hampered the formation of LibriVox’s cuture and methods. On the contrary I think use of general-purpose software enabled that culture and those methods to emerge and evolve.

I realize this approach isn’t for everyone. We need to strike a balance between special-purpose software that’s too rigid and general-purpose software that’s too open-ended. I’m not smart enough to figure out what that middle ground should look like, but I think Bret Victor is and I’ve been inspired by his recent explorations that point the way to great user innovation toolkits. Give people the right tools and they’ll be happier and more effective — not only as employees, but also as citizens of the world.

7 thoughts on “Opting out of line-of-business software”

I think there’s a lot to be said for what you might call lightweight customisation: the ability to tweak an out of the box product “just enough” to support the business process.

It’s what SharePoint was starting to deliver in 2007, and still supported in 2010 with Designer-level customisation. But it was always buggy and limited and they are walking back from the idea in 2013.

Few web apps support lightweight customisation and integration, which remains a lost opportunity. But we may yet see headless/scriptable browsers like PhantomJS fill that gap.

As someone who makes their living working on line-of-business software, it’s depressing to see how much of it falls so short in serving its users’ needs. I have encountered a lot of businesses who have managed to run themselves on spreadsheets and a bit of common sense like you describe… but very often, they get an inferiority complex about it. It won’t scale. It’s unprofessional. And all too often, a company’s management gets talked into buying an expensive “solution” that is anything but…

Well said. I’ve been writing about the disadvantages of LOB systems and proprietary platforms for many years. I’ve also been preaching — and teaching — about the necessity of conventions and other human methods of ensuring quality, consistency, and innovation. My personal tool of choice is Filemaker, which I think has done a good job of keeping pace with technological evolution. I use it for everything: contact management, invoicing, personal financial management, and organizing & archiving documents, interview notes, and important messages.